Schutz-Pass of Tivadar Foldes

This is a picture of my father Theodor, that is, Tivadar, Foldes, on his Schutzpass. It was issued in Budapest on 26th September 1944. The house on Terez Boulevard, where we lived, wasn't a yellow star house so we had to move out of the apartment. The house in Jokai Street where we moved to belonged to the Fonciere Insurance Company, their offices were on the second floor. Even when it became a yellow star house in June 1944. But at the end of October 1944 it was a refuge for Swedish embassy employees, with diplomatic immunity, thanks to Raoul Wallenberg. The Jokai Street apartment was smaller, with three rooms. It was a forced exchange. My father, mother, brother, aunt and uncle Karoly lived there, as well as me. When Wallenberg was operating then there were too many, at least 20-25 people lived there. Then we, the family, squeezed into a room. Christian inhabitants were still in the house, who didn't leave - and significantly the concierge, too. On the night of 7th to 8th January 1945, at the 'charitable request' of the concierge, an armed Arrow Cross company appeared. Either he had told them that there were Jews there illegally, or he thought he could get something out of it, whatever. I don't know. The thing is that night a few Arrow Cross turned up. I was eleven. They took everybody who could be moved - anyone who couldn't was shot - to the Arrow Cross building on 14 Varoshaz Street. Wallenberg got to know of it and appeared at the Arrow Cross building, so the next day they took us to the ghetto, to 54 Akacfa Street. My father and uncle were taken to the banks of the Danube on the following day and shot into the river. The bodies never appeared. The liberation happened on 18th January 1945.

Photos from this interviewee